Stress echocardiography: safety and tolerability

BACKGROUND: Stress echocardiography is a valuable tool for the noninvasive diagnosis of ischemic heart disease. Despite its widely use in the clinical practice, safety and side effects profile have never been evaluated in Moroccans. THE AIM: To assess the safety and tolerability of the two stress echo modalities in Moroccans. METHODS: The study was made by 311 patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease, 203 underwent exercise echocardiography and 108 underwent dobutamine echocardiography, major and minor rhythmic complications and side effects were recorded for the two groups. RESULTS: We registered 3 (2, 8%) major rhythmic events in the dobutamine group (2 sustained supraventricular tachycardia and 1 sustained ventricular tachycardia), there was no major rhythmic events in the exercise group. Minor rhythmic events were frequent (43, 5% in the dobutamine group and 19, 2% in the exercise group with a p = 0, 0001). Severe hypotension occurs in 4 (3, 7%) patients during a dobutamine stress, there was no significant drop in the blood pressure during exercise stress procedures. Non cardiac side effects were more common among patients who underwent a dobutamine stress echo (13, 9% vs. 3, 4% with p = 0,001). CONCLUSION: Exercise is safer than dobutamine stress echocardiography, complications and adverse effects with the use of dobutamine are usually minor and self-limiting.